The first weekend of a movie’s theatrical release can be crucial to its later success – the better it does when it opens, the greater chance it has of reaping financial rewards for years to come. Moviepilot is a new site launching today that aims to help build the buzz around movies before they launch by connecting the film industry with its biggest fans.

Moviepilot aims to be the ‘home’ of new films online, from as soon as the first rumors of them start to leak out. Each title gets its own page, aggregating news and discussion about it from around the Web and acting as a go-to place for fans who are passionate enough to want to know all the latest information. Users can subscribe to be updated on the latest news

Each movie’s page on the site will be mirrored on a dedicated Facebook page – a useful way for Moviepilot to harness social marketing for its service. The Berlin-based startup has proven success on Facebook, having built up four million ‘likes’ for its own Page there in eight months by becoming a place for fans to discuss upcoming movies while also building the company’s brand amongst its core audience.

Moviepilot already has a German website, moviepilot.de, which launched in 2007 as a more traditional movie portal, addressing untapped demand for such a site in the German-speaking market. Having built that into what it says is the largest online film community in Germany, the startup’s new site aims to take what it has learned to a larger scale.

The new site will work directly with movie studios to promote new movies, and thanks to Facebook’s analytics it will be able to tell them the kind of useful, granular data they may have struggled to obtain previously (e.g., “People who like Spiderman prefer this trailer to those who like Superman”).

While continuing base itself in Berlin, Moviepilot is in the process of opening London and Los Angeles offices in order to get closer to the film industry. Its plans for developing the site beyond what has launched today include more social features such as the ability for users to build reputations as tastemakers among their friends by recommending upcoming movies.